Drayton Bird wants me shot… I’m not sure if he’s aiming for a fatal wound or if he just wants to ‘see me dance’ as per the poker scene in Goodfellas. Either way, it’s not every day that a legend of the copywriting industry issues a bounty on your head. So, what happened? Well, as usual, […]
Tag Archives: DAVID OGILVY
Stephen Marsh, Copywriter What connects TV presenter Fiona Bruce, Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom and novelist W. Somerset Maugham? Give up? Well, they’re all from Canterbury. As too is Stephen Marsh… a freelance copywriter and generally good egg. He’s written copy for a vast variety of clients all around the world, including a private detective, which […]
I’ve just published a new book for Kindle… Buy This Now: A Beginner’s Guide to Direct Response Copywriting. Inside I’ve brought together ten simple rules that I recommend you follow when it comes to starting out in your copywriting career. This isn’t abstract stuff. It’s specific advice that you can apply to any copy you’re […]
Once upon a time, direct-response copywriting was considered ‘the Don’ of copywriting… Not the Don Draper. Far from it. You see, Don Draper – the famous fictional copywriter from the TV series Mad Men – is an indirect-response man. He writes copy that’s designed to briefly get your attention and then force the product to linger in your […]
So look… You might disagree with me here. You might sneer. You might even think I’m an idiot for saying what I’m about to say. But I’m going to say it anyway. I’d be a liar if I didn’t. Spit it out? OK… With direct-response copywriting I think it’s often better to be cliché than […]
Pictures paint a thousand words, right? But when it comes to using pictures in a direct-response sales letter, a badly chosen image will more likely lose you a thousand sales. More often than not, in my own sales letters I tend to avoid using stock images altogether. After all, when writing long copy you’re really constructing a persuasive […]
At the end of the 80s there was really only one widely recognized skateboarding company: Powell Peralta. Started by two of the biggest names in skateboarding – particularly Stacey Peralta – the company was very successful. Indeed, it was pretty much THE team to ride for. Its elite skating team – the Bones Brigade – actually included […]
When you walk into a classy restaurant you usually notice one thing before anything else… Sometimes, in fact, you don’t even realise you’ve registered it: it’s something that happens on a subconscious level. But the fact is, this seemingly minor detail can have a huge effect on your overall experience. I’m talking about a sense […]
Like any good copywriter, I don’t just write copy… In fact, in my experience I’ve found that all the most successful copywriters and ad men I’ve met and trained also write some form of ‘non-copy’ too. Mark Ford (Michael Masterson) and Nick Laight are poets, for example… Dave Fedash writes film scripts… Bill Bonner has published […]
A sales promotion landed on my desk recently… Nothing new there; being a professional copywriter, hundreds land on my desk every week. But this one caught my eye. Unfortunately, it was for the wrong reason. You see, it wasn’t the headline that caught my attention. In fact, when I got round to reading it, I […]